California Film Institute’s DocPitch 2025 has selected five documentary projects currently in development or post-production as the winners of a total of $100,000 in funding. Black Public Media (BPM) selected a documentary about caregiving with comedy and two science fiction immersive projects for a total of $225,000 in production and development funding at the 2025 PitchBLACK Awards.
DocPitch 2025 Award Recipients
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH GREENWASHING ~ Audience Award $45,000
Pitching: Co-Director Samuel Pigott, Producer Karla Amsteins
An investigative journey into Chile’s booming private conservation industry uncovers ecological malpractice, human rights violations, and historical injustices tied to the privatization policies of the Pinochet Dictatorship. In a region notorious for violence against activists, a group of environmental defenders fight to safeguard their communities and find hope in the face of impunity.
PARACHUTE KIDS ~ Jury Award $40,000
Pitching: Director/Producer S. Leo Chiang
Parachute Kids is a first-person essay film exploring my turbulent experience as an unaccompanied minor who moved to the US from Taiwan through an unusual, ongoing East Asian immigration practice, examining my family’s peculiar, bittersweet version of the American Dream.
BANISHMENT ~ Jury Award $5,000
Pitching: Director Alex Rivera, Producer JoeBill Muñoz
Deportations happen every hour of every day in the United States, but “deportation” appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. This is the incredible true story of where deportation came from, how it almost never began, and a roadmap towards, perhaps, ending the practice forever.
IN BETWEEN WORLDS ~ Jury Award $5,000
Pitching: Co-Directors Masha Karpoukhina, Michael (Pom) Preston
Amidst climate chaos, the Winnemem Wintu tribe fights to keep a sacred promise to return their ancestral, winter-run Chinook salmon to the waters of California, just as salmon runs across the world are collapsing. Guided by Chief Caleen Sisk, they must journey to Aotearoa (New Zealand), where, miraculously, the genetic descendants of their salmon survived.
THE GENDER PROJECT ~ Jury Award $5,000
Pitching: Director Kimberly Reed, Producer Robin Honan
Cutting-edge scientists researching gender/sex reveal that it is much less binary than people think. Designed to spark conversation across generations – and across political boundaries where anti-trans laws have become a political cudgel – The Gender Project combines visually-driven essay filmmaking with character-driven storytelling to show that gender/sex is a many-splendored thing.
DocPitch is the a cornerstone program of the California Film Institute’s (CAFILM) DocLands Documentary Film Festival, championing bold, independent voices in non-fiction storytelling.
“The California Film Institute is proud to support documentary filmmakers through DocPitch, a program that continues to elevate vital, independent voices,” said Mark Fishkin, CAFILM Executive Director and Founder. “This year’s exceptional projects reflect both the urgency and depth of the explored issues, and the return of the in-person component underscores the importance of fostering direct engagement between filmmakers, funders, and audiences.”
Black Public Media (BPM) 2025 PitchBLACK winners
Black Public Media (BPM)’s PitchBLACK Awards was preceded by BPM’s PitchBLACK Forum — a pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists who create Black content.
The Forum winners include Finding Your Laughter by Chicago’s Arlieta Hall and Brittany Alsot, a documentary about the ups and downs of Hall’s life balancing caregiving to her Alzheimer’s-ailing father with her comedy career, won the top award of $150,000 in the film category. Rhythmic Wave II: Ancestral Waves, by Nigerian-American new media artist and Los Angeles resident Aya, took the $50,000 award. The project is a 30-minute live interactive performance set in 5054 blending Afrofuturism, immersive dance and AI-generated movement (from AI dancers trained on the Nigerian Akwa Ibom dance archive) in a three-wall projected space. Prince George’s County, Maryland, resident Jeremy Kamal’s Run, a sci-fi, third person exploration game created in his own unique game universe, was awarded $25,000.
At the event hosted by comedian Jamie Roberts, veteran film editor Lillian E. Benson, ACE (American Cinema Editors) was awarded the BPM Trailblazer Award by the group’s Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz. Benson, who joins Orlando Bagwell, Joe Brewster, Yoruba Richen, Sam Pollard, Michèle Stephenson and Marco Williams in having received the award, is known for her Emmy® nominated work on Eyes on the Prize II, Showtime’s Soul Food, NBC’s Chicago Med and OWN’s Greenleaf. NPR host Brittany Luse (It’s Been a Minute) moderated a conversation with Benson, giving audience members further insight into the history-making editor’s career.
A two-week BPM Trailblazer Film Retrospective featuring a curated collection of works edited by Benson will stream for free through May 12 on blackpublicmedia.org. Films include Beyond the Steps: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise; New World, New Forms; The Taste of Dirt; and two parts of Eyes on the Prize II: The Promised Land (Part 10) and Keys to the Kingdom (Part 13).
Atlanta resident Joel A. Mack was announced as the latest Nonso Christian Ugbode Digital Media Fellow, an award named after BPM’s late director of digital initiatives and awarding a talented under-30 creative. Mack was selected for his/her/their work as a developer, storyteller and creative technologist working in new media.
Descended from the Promised Land, a Black Wall Street documentary by New Orleans native Nailah Jefferson, was announced as the first-ever AfroPoP Digital Shorts Viewers’ Choice winner, in a competition launched earlier this year. Audience members of the AfroPoP Digital Shorts series, which streams on BPM’s YouTube channel, voted on the award.